


In all the silence

by Kypros



Category: Ouran High School Host Club - All Media Types
Genre: Brooding, F/M, Light Angst, Maids
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-26
Updated: 2013-03-26
Packaged: 2017-12-06 15:22:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/737178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kypros/pseuds/Kypros
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are things he doesn't understand, like words and actions, like her messy hair and how she always smelled of sandalwood. In the end, she never did say goodbye.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In all the silence

Towards the end, nothing changed. He had always thought that there would be a sign, or signs. Omens, maybe. Definitely portions of his life that would snap in half. Something out of the ordinary—like misplaced numbers in the margins his account books, or a system failure on his laptop that would bring up a screen prompting him to become aware of the impending shutdown.

There weren't.

But Kyoya still felt as though he should have seen it coming—he was an Ootori _dammit_ —and the helpless anger and despair that rushed through him at all times signaled his body's agreement. Not that it ever showed.

It wasn’t like he had liked the girl, or anything. She was an absolute contemptible _bitch,_ spurious in her mannerisms with an undeserved air about her—almost as if she thought she was _better_ than him. _Him_. An Ootori.  And it wasn’t like she had never felt the need to let him know it either, because quite frankly, he already knew. He knew every time she spoke to him, words lackluster and dull, mouth screwed into that half perturbed, half stoic line of indifference. He knew every time she sighed when he walked into a room, forcing her to put down the book that she had been reading so intently that the world around her had become forgotten and the only thing that mattered were the soft pages of histories of the dead. _He knew_.

The thing was...there had been times when—when she had almost... smiled, and it was the loveliest thing he had ever seen.

He fell in half-love (he never would admit to more, not even to himself) with her all over again every infrequent time her lips had quirked into that strange, crooked half-smile. It was almost as she was trying very hard _not_ to smile, as if smiling would somehow give him a perverse sort of satisfaction that she simply couldn’t allow. It annoyed him greatly, simply because it was just one other thing she held _just_ above his grasp—like her words and strange intellectualism and every other thing she would dare not to tell him out of sensibility and practical rational. Sometimes, he hated her for it. He hated her with the unpleasant, self-deprecating sort inanity in the pain of hating who you are, because her reaction to being around him was so mind-numbingly normal—or at least what normal _should be_ —and that is why he couldn’t stand it.

Never when he entered a room did she light up or even acknowledge him in a positive manner. She did not turn and fawn stupidly, or giggle with unmitigated foolishness. She did not blush when he said her name—not even when he exuded each syllable with a brisk sensuality that would have made any other teenage girl at Ouran faint. And maybe it was selfish of him to expect so much—maybe he was just so accustomed to the deferential groveling and undeserved worship from every other female in his life that the fact that she _wasn’t_ on her hands and knees, _begging_ for his attention, bothered him.

Or maybe it was something else. Something reprehensible, and cursory, impalpable and imbecilic. Something inane and just downright stupid. Maybe the only reason she interested him was _because_ she wasn’t like everyone else. And because she was wrong and because she was stupid (don’t you _get it,_ I’m an Ootori—an _Ootori_ dammit! You’re suppose to _adore_ me), and maybe that is why he liked her.

He would never say it out loud, but she was a refreshing breeze in his otherwise mundane life. He liked that. He liked how she could pique his interest without arousing the attention of his friends, or worse, his father. She was something so commonplace and trivial that nobody would have ever suspected that he, Kyoya, would have ever even _glanced_ her way, if only to let out an order.

You see, Asura Morioka was gorgeous, but not in the way anyone else saw her. She wasn’t a member of the upper-echelons of Japanese society—oh no, she was far from. Not that he had viewed her in _that_ sort of manner of course. He would shake his head and almost half-laugh, because she was far from marriage material—she had no name or money, and as far as he could tell, no real history behind either the money she lacked or the important name she did not possess. It was just…her smile was so rare that it made it all the more lovely when she did perchance a grin, never mind the fact that she was just his maid.

Asura's nails were always broken, her thick black hair was always pulled back, and the uniform she wore always had a stain from something she had been cleaning. Her eyes were pale and grey, like smoke or the salmon that swam north in the springtime in the Nanoke river, and as hygienic as she was, she smelled like a strange mixture of cleaning solvent, sandalwood and the perfume that his sister wore. On top of that, she did not respond pleasantly or indulgently or with enthusiasm when he asked her to perform any sort of menial household tasks—rather, her voice was mechanical and astute, the distant, “Yes, Ootori-san”, as irritating as her self-imposed attitude of superiority that came as a side-effect of said aloofness. It was almost if she would rather be anywhere _but_ working in the Ootori household, and for this he supposed he could fire her. But, he didn’t. You see, she was the only one who would ever clean his room without bothering him. And he liked that.

They worked, in a weird way. Anyone who saw them interact—a small number—had a brain standstill caused by the hiccup in the Laws of the Universe; that hiccup being Kyoya's strange tolerance of the lowly household maid who came from obscurity. The first time they met, he had found her breezing through the pages of his of copy Georg Hegel’s _Elements of the Philosophy of Rights_ from his private bookshelf, feather duster negligently abandoned at the wayside. She hadn’t notice him enter, nor his approach, but when he caught her attention with an ineloquent, albeit authoritative ‘ _ahem_ ’, he at least expected her to behave like a reprimanded and authentically apologetic employee. She did not. No, she had closed the book slowly, placing it back in the shelve, and turned to him, bowing only slightly and with an impassive voice, told him she was sorry – not for touching his personal belongings, not for shirking her duties, but just sorry. She gave no other explanation.

“I apologize Ootori-san. Forgive me.”

She did not sound sorry either; just apprehensive that she had been caught.

“I shall have to tell my father about this,” is what told her. He expected her to quiver in fear—to tremble and break down—to beg his indulgences. Cry even. Again, she did not. She merely bowed her head and nodded.

“As you see fit, Ootori-san.”

Then, she turned from and continued on her way, continuing to wash the interior panes of his window sill and fluffing the throw cushions on his bed. And that was that.

This had bothered him. He wasn’t sure why (maybe it was the start of the half-love he was falling in or maybe he had secretly admired her for being so courageous.) Regardless, he did not tell his father.

Later in their relationship, she would fold his clothes and make his bed and work in silence. Oddly enough, he would sit there, still as a statue, typing away on his laptop (if anybody asked, he was calculating the Host Clubs monthly expenditures) and from the corner of his eye, watch her work—to make sure she didn’t touch anything again of course. Sometimes she would mess up. She wasn’t perfect. Sometimes he actually found himself smirking, like that time when she accidently swore after spilling a vase full of flowers without realizing he was there.  She had blushed then—it was the only time he had ever seen her embarrassed—but said nothing else. She did not apologize or rush from the room in shame. No, rather she cleaned up the mess and wiped up the water in a prideful sort of way, mindful of his presence from that point onwards, and Kyoya would want to laugh and shake his head. He never did.

And sometimes he would just sit down and wait while she tidied his room and he was never really sure why.

There came a point where she began to ask him questions in a voice demure and reserved—and he figured it was _just_ because he was there.

 "Ootori-san, would you prefer the lavender bed sheets or the ochre?"

He would raise his cool brown eyes to her own grey ones before looking out the vast French silhouetted windows, and roll his eyes in indifference. “It doesn’t matter Asura-san,” is what he would say. “A sheet is a sheet. Stop bothering me with such trivial questions.”  Silly girl, he would think. How stupid and inane—why did she even bother?

“As you wish, Ootori-san.” And yet everyday she would ask, over and over again. She never did stop.

He would watch her then, carefully, eyes slanted and narrowed—waiting for her choice. She would always choose the ochre, because lavender was a far too frivolous color for Kyoya anyways, and Kyoya would make note of this. Ochre—that terrible golden brown. This made him wonder as well, because why would she even bother to ask, because it was always the same, no matter what he said. Always ochre. Always. So silly—so dumb.

But then he would see her reading something again—like John Locke’s _Two Treaties of Government_ or a historical manuscript on the Russian monarchy. She would read while she cleaned—never his room of course—after that day when he caught her red-handed flipping through the pages of his book, she never did dare to do it again. But sometimes, he would find her in the south-wing—a place no one really bothered with, filled with nothing but spare bedrooms and frivolous  halls of grandeur and statues that they only used for entertaining guests—and he would see her with a damp cloth in one hand, the other pre-occupied by the spine of some book. It was beyond inappropriate—another cause-worthy reason to have her fired—and yet again, Kyoya did nothing.

By the time she noticed him watching, she would merely eye him disdainfully, close the book and go back to doing whatever menial task it was that she had been occupied with. She would not read when Kyoya was around, although he secretly wanted her to.

He supposed he should have reprimanded her, especially for the looks she dared to cast his way, but he didn’t. Rather, he merely pursed his lips and growled some ineloquent “ _Hn_ ”. He would saunter over ever-so casually, and knowing that she was watching him, he would pick up the piece of literature and study its contents. Perhaps it was just because she liked to hear the sound of her voice, even if it was just a mechanical yes or no, but he began to ask her questions.

“A history of 19th century Imperial Germany?” he would say. He would smirk at her and begin to calculate her worth and intelligence, as if one book might have more worth than another. As if her choice in reading was essential to his judgment of her personality. And so, he staked _The Great Gatsby_ against _Little Women_ and the _Communist Manifesto_ in opposition to _The History of the Cold War_. Gathering from her eclectic collection of histories, he figured she was at least mildly intelligent, and at the most, just a stupid maid who enjoyed deluding herself with the finer points of higher education. Yes, that was just about right. She was nothing more—just a maid.

Regardless of his judgments or unkind smiles, she would always respond with the same monotonous: "Yes, Ootori-san, I have read that—I was just going over it again” or “No, Ootori-san, I have not yet finished that particular volume.”

And maybe he was just a little bit impressed—sometimes— _maybe_ —but he never said it. The fact that she was reading these at all was to be praised, but of course, he could not tell her that. Instead, he would just stare at the book, fingers idly flipping through the pages, to annotated parts of the text that she deemed important like—‘ _In 1871 Bismarck united Germany following the Franco-Prussian War_ ’ and ‘ _the Zollverein was a treaty meant to bring economic unity within the states_ ’ before setting it down again, gently, softly, and leaving.

After that, he really had no excuse to talk to her, other than to remark upon the most abject of things.

“Asura-san, you did not fold the sheets on my bed right” or “Asura-san, be more careful when you clean the rugs—I nearly tripped the other day over your brushes.”

 

 

 

Sometimes she did respond, nodding, “Yes, Ootori-san, I will try” and sometimes she did not. Sometimes, she merely stared at him with the intrinsic complexity of someone trying to figure out life’s mysteries, and for the slightest of seconds, she would look exasperated, because the sheets were perfect and there were no brushes left out on the floors, ever. Needless to say, Kyoya had the slightest of feelings that she did not like him.

\---

Underneath it all, there was an unarticulated animosity. He did not _like_ her—this Asura Morioka—and for all her idealized civility of what a servant _should be_ (because she never blushed or giggled or behaved flippantly in his presence), he _did not like her._ And she did not like him.

She never said, oh no, but he could see it in her eyes and in every little breath she took when he ordered her to do something. Like just was just about to snap.

And he wanted her to snap so badly. He wanted to see the _real_ Asura beneath the molded façade of maid-Asura. He wanted the Asura who shirked her duties to read classic literature and never apologized and looked him in the eyes without fear.

(He did not like her.)

Oh yes, it was true he was half in love with her smile (so rare and exquisite) and he was secretly intrigued every time he caught her reading something new (as if her worth could be weighed by her choice in literature—as if somehow he could justify this fascination by her unproven intelligence), but on a calm, exterior level of Kyoya rational, she was to be viewed with dislike. It was just ironic, because there was really no rational for this at all.

All of this went on for quite some time.

And then one day she handed to his father a formal letter stating her official resignation. Her gray eyes flashed over to his brown ones and then settled back at gray as she walked through the halls, her final days as a maid in the Ootori household numbered. She did not tell him personally that she was leaving. That was to be expected, he guessed.

She didn't do anything out of the ordinary, merely went along and did what she always did. She went back to changing bed sheets and washing windows and cleaning the dust off the furniture in his room, and he just sat there, fingers clicking away on the keys of laptop, and nobody said a word. I mean, it wasn’t that he had _liked_ the girl, or anything.

When her final day at the Ootori estate came to be, Kyoya did not expect her to say a real definitive, I’m-leaving-forever sort of goodbye. She came as she always did, slipping not-so silently into his room, as if she was not afraid to let him be aware of her presence. She tidied his already immaculately tidy room, rearranging throw pillows that did not need to be arranged and dusted glass table tops that did not need to be dusted. She stripped the sheets from his bed, piling the linens into a ball before carrying them away, returning moments later with fresh, clean horrible ochre colored sheets that he never really did like. She made the bed in silence and sighed heavily when she noticed the hand print on the window by the bookshelf. She turned and looked at him briefly, as to say _was it really necessary for you to make more work for me? I know you only do this to be bothersome_. Kyoya ignored her brief stare, and she cleaned the window too.

When it was over, she merely turned to him and bowed like she always did. Her face was neutral and supine, like always, hands perfectly folded into creases of her skirted lap. Kyoya held his breath in anticipation, waiting with an already resolved disappointment of what was to come next.

“Goodbye, Ootori-san.”

She did not disappoint him. It was just like any other day. She left and Kyoya did not say a word. Just like any other day.

Later, when he not so casually searched through his father’s personal files, he came upon her record of employment. She had left—so stated in her letter of resignation—to attend a preparatory school in Iwanoki. He found this strange in the utmost. Almost as if she had outdone him, _again_. Up until this point in time, he had not fathomed her a life beyond the enclaves of his estate. She slept in the servant’s wing, woke each morning, cleaned, cleaned some more then, after he got home, cleaned again. Then, perhaps maybe, she would go to her room and read. That was her life, and he in all his vast intelligence had not figured she existed beyond this 2-dimenisional world he had created for her.

His brother happened by chance to walk by him on his laptop, diligently staring at her portfolio, a clean image of her face tacked up upon the screen.

“She was a nice one eh, Kyoya?” he remarked lewdly. “I’d fuck her if it wasn’t for the fact that she was as cold as Nato harbor in the dead of winter time. I couldn’t get her to come near me. What a bitch.”

Kyoya did not respond—merely shut the top of his laptop and glared despondently at his brother, who laughed and walked away.

 ---

He was unsure how much time had passed before by coincidence or perhaps accident, he ran across Asura outside the walls of the Ootori estate. It was nighttime—far past any decent hour, but regardless, Kyoya was just returning home from a Host function, eyes sleepy and legs tired. The limousine had just pulled up to the gates and Kyoya had opted to walk the distance between the road the mansion—Tamaki’s driver still had the twins to drop off, and so as it was, he slipped past the iron-wrought fence,  and motioned for the guard to open the gate so as he could pass through.

Perhaps if it had been any other night, he would not have noticed her. He was cold, hands shoved ungracefully into the depths of his pockets, head tucked low. He wanted nothing more than to go sleep. Tamaki had been insufferable to be around, and the twins had broken so much decorations that their budget for the month was likely to go into the negatives. But through the shadows in the darkness, he saw a flash of pink and maybe something else, and the sound of giggling and laughter. Curious, he approached, and in the darkness came face to face with three girls who had slowly been making their way to the back confines of the manor—to the servant’s entrance, of course.

He recognized Asura immediately. The dress she wore was plain, but flattering—nothing at all like her regular uniform that she adorned around the house. She looked sophisticated and accomplished in her coral pink a-line cocktail dress, her heels flat, matte black, with shiny pearls draped around her neckline. Her hair was down and her lips glossy. She didn’t smell like cleaning solvents or his sister’s perfume, and yet the scent of sandalwood was still there. Alcohol too. The pea coat she wore was a charcoal grey. She blinked a few times, eyes unwavering and cold, as if she had not a clue whom he was. Her two friends whispered unabashedly to one another, mirror twins of uncaring, un-accepting, nonconforming Asura, Asura who did not give two fucks that he was an Ootori and that he was beyond her in all ways possible. Asura who looked absolutely gorgeous in her coral pink cocktail dress, despite the fact that his mind was screaming how cheap the fabric was and how tacky the heels were.

“Ootori-san,” she finally responded after an uncomfortable amount of time had passed. “How good to see you.”

Again, he thought back to resignation letter and his intelligence—wasted on pride and inanity in believing he was above her—and found himself in a mild state of bewilderment. What was she doing here? _How had she—and why_ —

Her friends whispered—‘ _Why is he talking to her_?’ and Kyoya blinked and broke the cycle—opened his mouth and spoke. He ignored the fact that they were all very drunk.

“Yes, it’s nice to see you too, Asura-san.”

“ _Asura-san_ ,” her friend on the right mimicked. “ _Ooo_ Asura, you’re on first name basis with him, are you?”

“How lucky,” the other cooed, twittering her lashes and laughing not so kindly. “Did you know _Ootori-san_ that its Asura’s birthday?”

“Yes,” the other girl giggled. “She’s eighteen today—and you didn’t even get her a present!”

He was slowly beginning to recognize the other two as maids who also worked for his family, there names of which he was unsure. They continued to laugh, drunkenly, and Asura stood silent, eyes down-cast, lips curled into her familiar rigid posture he was so used to. How strange it was that mere moments ago she had been smiling.

“I apologize, Ootori-san,” she said quietly after that. “But we really must be going.”

“Yes, _Ootori-san_ , we must,” said the friend on the right.

“Yes,” said the other on the left.

Kyoya merely nodded the trio walked away.

\--

A few days later he cornered her in between the sleek glass table and the black leather chair that sat adjacent to his wall of books.

“You’re still here,” he commented demurely, as if she had never left at all, as if this whole time while he had been gone, she had been stuffed in some closet, waiting patiently for his return. She nodded, blinked twice and said: “Yes, I am. I have to pay for my schooling somehow.”

Kyoya was annoyed by her. He was annoyed and disdainful of her very being—of her black hair and smoky eyes and the way she looked at him so distastefully, as if he was a plague or something far worse—something unimaginably foul. He was annoyed how her uniform pinched at her waist and rode up on the thighs of creamy legs and how despite all this, she still looked gorgeous, even though black clearly wasn’t her color. He was annoyed by her scent—of the sandalwood and cleaning solvent and how because she cleaned his sister’s quarters, she smelt of Fuyumi as well.

But he had to make himself very clear to her, very clear and adamant—because this was something he should have done very long ago. She did not understand him—or who he was—or what he was to her. And Kyoya was very sick of pretending that it didn’t matter, because clearly, it mattered very much and she annoyed him with great austerity that he didn’t think possible.

“I could have had you fired many times, you know.”

Her face did not change—there was no slip of emotion, no wavering, trembling lips or blinking eyes that tried to hide the onslaught of tears.

“Yes, Ootori-san, I am well aware of your great power,” is all she said, as if she had to point out the obvious to poor, stupid Kyouya. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to work.”

She tried to slip away from him, but Kyoya was not done. He was angry now—yes, he _knew_ he had great power—but did she? Did she _really_ know? He slammed his arm straight against the wall, trapping her effectively between himself and the bookcase, and this time she blinked, he thought for a second her face would break and she would shout at him, or scream, but the moment passed and she remained as demure as ever.

“Why do you call me ‘Ootori-san’?” he nearly seethed—but no, an Ootori does not seethe—they intimidate and use suave language and overpowering physicality. “I call you Asura, do I not?" Words soft, voice dangerous. “You think you would have learned by now that the formality is not necessary.”

Stupid fucking Asura. She was so dumb—so menial and trivial and she _didn’t understand_.

“If you want me to call you ‘Kyouya’, Ootori-san, then I will,” is all she had to say to that. Kyoya did not answer. Asura was so—so impractical and dense and—

“Don’t you get it?” he questioned dangerously. “I’m an Ootori.”

There was silence and Kyouya for the briefest second thought he might have seen fear in her eyes, or panic in the way her chest rose and fell rapidly, mouth posed half ajar with kissable lips. He thought he finally might have made her snap. And he wanted this, badly. Still, she tried to resist.

“I understand that perfectly fine,” she remarked, and clearly now, she too was growing annoyed by his little game, as if she was the one who thought him to be stupid, not the other way around. “You are stating the obvious, Kyouya-san. I know you have great power over me. I know you an Ootori.” A pause, a finally, what Kyouya had been lusting for: “What I think that _you_ fail to understand is that I _do not care_.”

And there it was, out in the open, for the first time since he had met her. She did not care. Those words were beautiful and glorious and amazing. Those words were inane and stupid and imbecilic. Kyouya did not smile, but rather smirked, and did not relent, hand tightening its grip around her wrist.  

She went on.

“You think I haven’t noticed your unusual treatment towards me—your inane requests and stupid critical remarks? I have. I am not some dumb idiot blinded by your charms or family name. You think it’s silly of me to read, don’t you? That a maid has no higher aspiration then to kowtow to the whims of lazy aristocrats who through money have lost the ability to clean for themselves? I have dreams Kyouya—I may not be you—an _Ootori_ —but I have commonsense. I am not so stupid as to overlook someone simply because of their status. What do you really know about me? You seemed so shocked to see me the other night, outside of the estate. Why do you think I read? To amuse my petty little self with pipe dreams?  Tch—an Ootori…I understand what you are Kyouya, and I certainty glad that I am not one of them.”

It was the most he had ever heard from her at one time. She was sharp and vindictive, words flying from her pretty little mouth like razor-blades, eyes wild, face flushed. It was beautiful, to see her like this—to see her come alive. He supposed, like most things when it came to Asura, that he should have fired her right there and then. But like most times, he did not. He merely smirked, let go of her wrist and kissed her.

Momentarily, she went still. Her body tensed, her eyes widened, but she did not move. Seconds passed. When Kyouya finally pulled away her face was an unusually bright shade of red that would have passed for the Hitachiin twins hair. Her face, he observed, still remained frozen in a half-twisted state between pure shock and what he could figure not other for, but terror. He smirked and made a light ‘ _tch-ing_ ’ sound as if to indicate that he had somehow gotten the better of her for once, and truly, he had. Because here she was—the great and almighty Asura Morioka —frozen at a standstill and brought to state of immobility by a mere kiss. But his accolades were a mistake—her eyes narrowed, and while she still wasn’t moving as he fluidly took two steps in reverse, he wasn’t quick enough to catch her hand as it firmly connected to the soft tissue of his cheek, broken nails gently braising the surface as she pulled back.

“You— _you_ —,” Her voice was filled with the quietest anger he had ever heard, as if her own fury could somehow match his own. Hitting him? _Him?_

The room had very quickly filled with an overwrought sort of tension, the type that was palpable in its existence, that is, vibrating and fairly thick. He could certainly have her fired now, if not for everything she had done in the past, for the simple act of striking him, unprovoked or not. But it seemed like most things when it came to Asura, it seemed that that she _did not care._

_\---_

_TBC._


End file.
